Tonight the Belgian TV program Canvas will start a series on taboos. It will include obesitas, homosexuality, suicide and giving away your baby to strangers because you just can't cope as a mom. Very good idea. I am wondering if the taboo on the question of overpopulation of our earth will get attention. We are 6,9 billion of us fighting for food, fresh water, jobs, respect, love, tuition, fuel, health care, homes, land, transportation and communication. Soon we will be 10 billion. And if we believe in professor...

The pictures of the dead on the streets in Ivory Coast are a shame for those who know what went wrong during the presidential elections that split the country after the result was made public. This is what most people know: outgoing president Gbagbo doesn't want to accept his defeat and the winner, Mr. Ouattara, cannot take the presidential seat. That's why the country faces civil war and bankrupcy. The revengeful shootings have already started. The African Union has mobilized a special commission to deal with the case but...

The price of a barrel of crude oil is going up every day. The wells are, odly enough, exactly in those places where social unrest and protest against authoritarian regimes is strongest. Coincidence? What becomes clear is that the so called civilized world has been shamelessly dealing with cronies from Bahrein to Tripoli and from Algiers to Caracas. (Is the Venezuelan street the next stage of violent protest? I wouldn't be surprized.) We, the rich countries, have closed our eyes and are now forced to open them for a...

Are you soon leaving for Venezuela? Will you flee the country leaving your sons behind to defend what is left of the Qaddafi empire? Or should I say, the Qaddafi circus? I remember you sitting on a tractor, which you drove yourself. There you came, in a cloud of dust, dressed like a farmer. You wanted to show us, reporters, that you are a tribesman, a Beduin, a simple soul. Ah, your theater, your egocentric PR machine! You were surrounded by female guards, Khalashnikov in hand, sunglasses to hide...

Since 9/11 Arabs have too often been categorized by those outside their region as incomprehensible and, of course, dangerous. Yet the eruption of the Arab street, from Tunis to Cairo, and from Amman to Sana'a, reveals another narrative. The antigovernment protesters are not expressing extremist rage but righteous anger. The enemy is not the West but authoritarianism at home. The call is not for global jihad but for freedom, justice and dignity - the very 'universal values' Barack Obama cites. Even if we know that democracy will not emerge anytime...

Mr. Ahmedinedjad, I imagine that you are pleased with the riots in Egypt, the unrest in Tunesia, the movements in Jordan and the nervousness in Israel. Your dream to become the third most powerful leader in the world, after China and the US, is almost coming true. A few more lucky moments and Iran will stand at the gates of Cairo, Tunis and Amman. The tsunami of change will be felt in the palaces of Saudi Arabia. The Americans will have trouble staying at the side of the Saud...

The Internet has brought countless benefits to mankind, but as we see now, it also creates incalculable potential for mischief: it amplifies the threats of schoolyard bullies, empowers terrorists and fringe groups, and opens up huge new spaces to technologically savvy criminals. Now that data can be shared, linked, and exploited with instantaneous ease, the risks entailed by publication of information mushroom out of all recognition; there is simply no way that an editor (of Der Spiegel, The New York Times, NRC Handelsblad), however well meaning, can make...